Last Chance to Dance: Funeral for a Friend

March 28, 2016

Events

It’s two days on and I am still absolutely gutted one of my favorite bands, Funeral for a Friend (FFAF), played their last shows ever here in Berlin. They put on two concerts back to back, and played one complete album each night, in addition to a number of their hits and fan favorites. The location was intimate and the crowd was on fire, often louder than the boys on stage. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting send off – but the the more I enjoyed it, the worse I started to feel about it being the last time. It also felt like I had missed an opportunity, I had liked the music for a long time but only been able to get around Europe to see shows the last few years.

The name of the tour is fantastic, even though the music is quite heavy it’s incredibly melodic, and perfect for dancing, jumping, moshing and to sing along to – not sure what I do can be classified as singing though. Nevertheless, on both nights I was drenched by the second song, and my ticket came apart in my pocket the second night, but as luck would have it I caught a drumstick – like a wide receiver I grabbed and tucked – so I got an amazing piece of memorabilia in place of the tickets I usually keep. I incorporated the drumstick and the drumstick, the crumbling ticket and one of the concert t’s I bought into a few photos with my 50mm equivalent prime lens for some sweet shallow depth of field:

Casey McHale’s drumstick, now my drumstick

Another composition with the ticket crumbles featured more prominently:

I knew bringing a camera to the mosh pit would be a few hundred euro accident waiting to happen, so I opted for tactically using my iPhone for short periods at particular moments. As such the images contribute more to memory than photography, per se.

That’s all folks! Despite having two nights, in retrospect it all went very fast. I suppose two last concerts is better than one, and definitely better than none – which is how a lot of bands end their run. The only solace in the latter case, is that these bands sometimes find their way back together, but I know that a band which goes against the grain and does away with the fake “encore” routine and sticks to it, will in all likelihood stick to their word. Fortunately the music and the memories remain. In this sense: “Your history is mine”.